


Ace of diamonds

by ToxicPineapple



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: (not the tenmiko), (that's for kaito and tenko), Ableism, Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Brief Relationships, Bullying, Childhood Friends, Developing Relationships, Enemies to Friends, F/F, Friendship, Growing Up, Honourfic Use, Japanese Culture Things, No Ultimate Talents AU, Non-Hope's Peak AU, Platonic Relationships, anger management issues, tenko is Trying Her Best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22414489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToxicPineapple/pseuds/ToxicPineapple
Summary: The next day, at lunch when the rest of the class crowded around in the same four desks that they always occupied to eat, and Tenko sat alone by the window eating through the bento her father packed for her that morning, Himiko slid into the desk next to her, her own bento bearing rice formed into the shape of a cute white fox.It felt a bit mean to be surprised, but Tenko couldn’t help it. Nobody really liked her, so of course they didn’t eat lunch with her. She watched Himiko for a long moment as she used trainer chopsticks to eat the dried plums her parent must’ve used for the eyes, and finally mustered the courage to say, “Hi, Himiko-chan.”“Hi, Tenko-chan,” Himiko replied through a mouthful of plum and rice. “You can use chopsticks.”---Tenko has two solutions to every problem. Ignore it, or fight it. She learns a third in her fourth year of elementary school when Himiko transfers into her class, and then countless others as she grows up, and over time, learns to put her faith in her heart, and not her fists.
Relationships: Akamastu Kaede & Chabashira Tenko & Momota Kaito, Akamatsu Kaede & Chabashira Tenko, Akamatsu Kaede/Chabashira Tenko (brief), Chabashira Tenko & Momota Kaito, Chabashira Tenko & Yumeno Himiko, Chabashira Tenko/Yumeno Himiko
Comments: 14
Kudos: 72





	Ace of diamonds

**Author's Note:**

> hinamatsuri- girl's day  
> white day- the day when boys in japan and other asian countries are to give chocolates to the girls  
> setsubun- a holiday celebrating the coming of spring  
> shinkansen- the bullet train  
> daifuku- mochi made with bean paste filling, typically served at hinamatsuri festivals  
> senpai- a term used to refer to one's upperclassman. tenko isn't a yandere. she's merely treating sakura with respect.
> 
> disclaimer: there are children who use terms such as "slow in the head" to demean tenko in this piece. that's ableism. they're saying she has a mental disability, and treating it as something that makes her lesser. i want to emphasise that this is not an acceptable way to refer to someone who is neurodivergent, nor is it acceptable to demean someone for not being neurotypical. whether they are or aren't shouldn't make a difference in the level of respect you treat them with. in this piece the children are simply echoing ableist sentiments taught to them by their parents. but that doesn't make their behaviour okay, and i hope that this piece properly condones the people who act in that way

While Tenko was going through the early years of elementary school, everything seemed to her a lot simpler. The concept of situations having  _ nuance _ was something that never formally (or generally) occurred to her. It didn’t need to. That is to say, there was never anything that happened to make her realise it. She had two possible courses of action for every situation, and they served her just fine. If something made her upset, she fought it. If it didn’t, she left it alone, and perhaps didn’t do anything at all.

It was a way of living that didn’t make her a lot of friends. Or any friends, to be frank, but that wasn’t a particularly big deal to her. Tenko had her parents, and even though she was quite insufferable, they loved her. Her mother especially was her favourite person to be around. Patient and sweet, she was everything that Tenko wasn’t, didn’t care to be. But they got along very well. Tenko didn’t ever lose her temper with her parents. There was no reason to do so. They never gave her any.

With her peers, though, all it took was a look lingering for too long, or a particularly insulting insinuation that wasn’t well-masked enough for Tenko to miss it, and then she was flying at them, fists balled and eyes flashing. She didn’t lose fights often. A kid told her once that she was so impossible to defeat because nobody could ever figure out what her plan was. She was unpredictable. Her eyes would stick somewhere but her legs would kick somewhere else. And she fought like she was about to die if she stopped. She didn’t ever stop until she felt that retribution had been dealt.

In truth, Tenko really wasn’t sure how to define the kind of retribution that she was looking for. She had never even heard the word before, much less did she know how to define it. When she went into a fight, she wasn’t thinking about that. She was just angry, and her immediate impulse was to cause pain as a result. It was all that she knew how to do. And it had served her well, so she saw no cause to learn how to do anything else. Adults thought she was troubled, and fancy men with white collars told her that she had problems with anger management, but she just shrugged it off. It didn’t matter. She was doing well for herself.

When she was in her fourth year of elementary, though, a new student transferred to her school. Tenko didn’t pay much attention to gossip, but the day before the student arrived, she picked up things here and there anyway. Whispers of the girl who was to be joining their class. Tenko shrugged it off. They didn’t know who or what they were talking about, anyway. The girl was new. And it wasn’t like Tenko really cared about her classmates. Half of them, she didn’t even know their names.

It was this opinion that Tenko maintained of the girl, even when she met her. She recalled vivid, cherry-red hair long enough to brush over her shoulders and clipped out of her eyes with cute little black cat pins, sleepy, half-lidded red-brown eyes, but the girl’s name didn’t even stick in her mind. She was very tiny, and soft spoken, and Tenko thought that perhaps if the girl made her angry, she’d just turn around and walk away. Because even though she didn’t care much for the girl, she was so tiny, and it felt mean, entertaining the possibility that she might try to fight her. Someone with such small hands, Tenko doubted she could even fight back.

A week after she transferred, Tenko found herself facing off against one of the kids in her class. This one was a boy who Tenko did know the name of, purely because she had fought him so many times. A boy named Kaito, who said stupid things about girls being weaker than boys, and boys being strong so they could protect girls. Tenko didn’t like hearing that in general, but especially not from someone it was so easy for her to pound into the ground. He was talking the same kind of smack as always that day, and she was hardly even thinking about it, balling her hands into tight fists and pushing up the sleeves of her uniform, but then--

A deck of cards was shoved in front of her face, and the girl with red hair said, “Choose one.”

Tenko blinked, dumbfounded. “Huh?” She stuttered out. She felt awfully inarticulate, but it usually didn’t matter to her. She didn’t have to talk very much to get by. It wasn’t like she was usually sitting down and having conversations with kids before she hit them. But it felt weird facing the new girl with nothing but a single syllable, especially with the fervent look in her red-brown eyes.

“A card,” specified the girl, sounding annoyed. “Choose one of them.”

“Don’t bother, Himiko-chan,” another one of their classmates, this one unnamed and faceless too, nudged the girl (Himiko?) with her arm. “Tenko-chan is slow. Daddy says up there.” She tapped her temple. “Y’know?”

Himiko raised her eyebrows. “I don’t see how that stops Tenko-chan from choosing a card.” She said cooly. With that, she turned back to Tenko, shoving the cards more insistently in front of her. Tenko registered her hand shaking as she selected a card. She wasn’t sure what to do with it, though. “Look at it,” Himiko instructed, very business-like. “And memorise it. Don’t tell me what it is!” She added, a touch sharply, perhaps because Tenko had been about to show it to her.

So instead, she looked down at the front of the card. It was red, like Himiko’s hair. Ace of diamonds. She gazed at it for a moment, felt the pretty red burning into her eyelids, and then looked up at her again. “Okay,” she paused. “Tenko’s memorised it.”

“Good.” Himiko took her deck in both hands, and with some effort, split it in half. “Put it in here.” She ordered, and Tenko complied, all thoughts of Kaito and the mean girl with her demeaning tone and talk of what her father said vanishing from her brain. She watched Himiko return the deck to its original position, shuffling the cards up so that there was no way of her knowing where it went. Then she stared down at them for a long moment.

“Are you going to find my card and show it to me?” Tenko asked carefully, because she had seen something similar on the TV, where a magician asked a stranger to choose a card and then showed them what it was. It was a trick, though. It had to do with counting the cards. He had explained it all on the TV. Tenko wondered if she should say so. She didn’t think it would be very nice, but that was never really something she had worried about before.

“No.” Himiko shook her head. “Your card isn’t even in here, anyway.”

“Huh?” Tenko widened her eyes. Was Himiko bluffing? She looked at the offending deck of cards in Himiko’s hands, wondering how the card could be missing from the deck when she had just put it in there. “Are-- are you sure?”

“Check,” said Himiko, thrusting the deck at her face. Tenko took it, turned it around, and then carefully looked through the cards. Ace of diamonds was missing. She checked through a second time, and a third, frowning. When she looked up at Himiko, met raised eyebrows, she shook her head and handed the desk back over. “Yeah, it’s not there.” Himiko smiled. “I think you have it, though.”

  
“What?” Tenko felt a bit dumb. “What do you mean? Tenko gave it to--”

“Why’s it in your pocket, then?”

Confused, Tenko slid her hand into the pocket of her skirt, preparing to contradict, but then her hands closed around something smooth and thin, firm like cardstock. She pulled it out, and, shiny in the bright light of the courtyard was--

“Hm. Ace of diamonds.” Himiko smiled, a crooked half-smile that looked awfully lazy, but for some reason made Tenko’s heart do a somersault in her chest. “My favourite card. Gimme it,” she extended her hand, and so Tenko handed it over, feeling for some reason like her world was knocked off kilter. When could Himiko have put the card back in her pocket? That didn’t make any sense. Or maybe… Tenko shook her head. She didn’t understand, but… as Himiko turned to walk away, satisfied and having finished performing her trick, Tenko felt herself give a jolt.

“Himiko-chan,” she stopped, feeling odd. Himiko turned around, still smiling that smile. “That was really cool.” She finished lamely. “I-- could you teach Tenko to do that?”

Himiko paused, and then closed her eyes, a different kind of smile spreading across her face. “No, I can’t.” Before Tenko could get disappointed, though, she added, “Because if I taught you how to do the magic, it wouldn’t impress you anymore.” She opened her eyes again. “I’m gonna go inside and use the bathroom. Seeya, Tenko-chan.”

Tenko dimly registered, when her mother appeared at the door of her classroom to pick her up after school was out, taking her hand and guiding her out of the school building, saying that she hadn’t gotten into any fights that day. (Because after Himiko walked away, she had completely forgotten about Kaito, and she spent the rest of the afternoon in a complete daze.) When her mother beamed at her, and said they’d go out for ice cream as a result, Tenko didn’t really know how to interpret the proud glow in her green eyes. Only that, the fact that she hadn’t hit anybody, hadn’t lost her temper with Kaito, was a good thing. Even if it was entirely owed to Himiko’s intervention that she hadn’t.

The next day, at lunch when the rest of the class crowded around in the same four desks that they always occupied to eat, and Tenko sat alone by the window eating through the bento her father packed for her that morning, Himiko slid into the desk next to her, her own bento bearing rice formed into the shape of a cute white fox.

It felt a bit mean to be surprised, but Tenko couldn’t help it. Nobody really liked her, so of course they didn’t eat lunch with her. She watched Himiko for a long moment as she used trainer chopsticks to eat the dried plums her parent must’ve used for the eyes, and finally mustered the courage to say, “Hi, Himiko-chan.”

“Hi, Tenko-chan,” Himiko replied through a mouthful of plum and rice. “You can use chopsticks.” She remarked, gesturing at the chopsticks in Tenko’s hand.

“Oh. Yeah.” Tenko looked down at them too, the piece of egg she held with them. “Dad made Tenko practice a bunch before going to visit his grandparents in Hokkaido two years ago so I know.” She brought the egg up to her mouth and looked at Himiko’s hand. “You hold them okay.”

“Yeah, it’s fine with the practice chopsticks.” Himiko said. “But I can’t make it work with normal ones. Mommy says my hand isn’t strong enough yet.”

“Huh.” Tenko considered what she said. “Well, it will be soon.”

“I think so.” Himiko agreed quietly. She gave Tenko a lazy smile. “Who made your bento?”

“Tenko’s dad.” Tenko replies after a moment, swallowing her piece of egg and picking up a block of tofu. She wasn’t vegetarian, but her father was, and he usually packed her some kind of tofu, even though he did prepare meat for her, since he knew she liked it. She liked the tofu, though. It was spongy and tasted good with soy sauce, and when it was fried the outside got crispy and made a nice crunch in her molars. Her father was a good cook. “Tenko’s mom packs for her sometimes, though, but Dad makes it better. He rolls the rice up really tight.” She put the tofu in her mouth and lifted one of the small rice balls. Her father used a lot of different kinds of filling for them, but she thought this one was pickled plum. Himiko seemed to like plum. “Do you want one?”

“Sure,” Himiko nodded, and so Tenko placed the ball in her bento box, and watched Himiko pick it up with the practice chopsticks. Really, she used them very well. She’d probably get better at using chopsticks as she got older.

“So, who made yours?” Tenko asked, lowering her chopsticks for a moment.

“Mommy. Mommy packs all my lunches.” Himiko replied. “I haven’t seen my dad in a while.” She gave Tenko an unreadable look. “My parents are divorced.”

“Oh.” Tenko paused. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Himiko shrugged. “Mommy is nice. And she calls Dad sometimes and asks if he wants to see me. He’s just usually busy.” She seemed very nonchalant about it, which Tenko found mind-blowing. Most of the kids in her class who had divorced parents were very sensitive about it. Not that that was their fault, really. Tenko couldn’t even imagine a universe wherein her parents didn’t love each other anymore. The fact that Himiko could just shrug it off and say that they were divorced without even changing her expression was a bit baffling. But it also made Tenko feel extraordinarily comfortable.

They became friends after that. At first it was confusing whenever Himiko would choose to sit next to Tenko, or join her in some class activity. Tenko had never experienced such a thing before. Someone who seemed to genuinely want to be around her. She thought she was too angry to make any friends. And the fact that she was didn’t bother her, not at all. But it was still nice to have someone who didn’t feel that way. Someone who actually seemed to prefer her company, and not anybody else’s.

Tenko stopped feeling the urge to fight people, for a while. Maybe they still said the aggravating things, but she didn’t notice them, because her friendship with Himiko was all that she was really thinking about, or else her parents, or her schoolwork, and so she didn’t get into any fights for several weeks.

The urge surfaced again on a Saturday. Saturdays were early dismissal and Tenko usually liked them. Mostly they just sat on the carpet and sang songs, and since it was February, they were making masks for Setsubun, and the teacher was planning on bringing in soy beans on the following Monday for them to eat. Tenko and Himiko started walking to school together, so that their moms didn’t have to drive them, and when they walked into the room that morning, there was an odd ripple of laughter from one corner of the classroom.

“Y’know,” one of the boys was saying, very loudly. “My papa says that people like that spend time together especially. Because they’re the only ones like that.”

“Shhhh!” A girl next to him shushed him, looking embarrassed. “You shouldn’t say those things, Mom says it’s unbe-- unbecoming.” She stated, looking proud of herself for using the big word.

“You agree with me,” he scoffed, elbowing her. She gave him an annoyed look but softened when he grinned. “Besides, they probably don’t even understand me, they’re like cows or something. Stupid in the head.”

It occurred to Tenko, distantly, that he was talking about her and Himiko. She felt the familiar rage burning in her stomach, and made to go over and sock him in the jaw, but felt a hand closing around her wrist. She was surprised enough to turn and meet Himiko’s eyes, mouth slightly open and eyebrows raised.

“Forget it,” Himiko said, gesturing at them with her chin. “If he wants to say stupid things like that then that’s his business. He’s just repeating what his dad says because he doesn’t have a brain of his own.” She was speaking loud enough to be heard. Out of the corner of her eye, Tenko saw his face redden, but focused on Himiko because she hardly even looked angry. “Besides, picking on people because you think they’re disabled is dumb.”

“Disabled?” Tenko frowned. “We  _ aren’t  _ disabled.”

“Sure, we’re not. But it wouldn’t be okay even if we were.” Himiko tugged on her arm and started towards their desks. “That’s what Mommy says. Everyone is how they are. And fighting those people just adds fuel to their fires. Ignoring them makes them feel bad about themselves. So that’s what you do.” She gave Tenko a small smile. “Besides, you’re very smart.”

Something warm tickled the inside of her chest. It wasn’t blazing like fire, not thick and murky like smoke. A gentle warmth, like she got from the fried sesame balls her mother made for celebrations. It was really all that she could make, but they tasted really good. Tenko liked red bean, and the mochi was good, but she especially liked the sesame seeds. They were crunchy. She liked crunchy things. Himiko’s smile was more of a full smile, different from her lazy half-smirk, and her gaze was soft. Friendly. It occurred to Tenko that she didn’t care what anyone thought of her, only Himiko. So she found it in her to sit down without being angry anymore. To take out her oni mask for Setsubun and start colouring in the eyes spring green, just like her mother’s, and the pair that she could see in the mirror. The hair, though, she coloured playing card red, like Himiko’s, and smiled when her teacher complimented her colouring. It was okay.

(After school, on the way home, Tenko overheard Kaito telling the boy who was talking that those things weren’t okay to say; not just because it was unbecoming, but because it was just plain bad. He didn’t make a lot of progress, but Tenko found herself smiling for no reason at all, even though she still didn’t like Kaito very much.)

Himiko and Tenko were best friends for three years, for the rest of fourth year and then all of fifth and sixth. They were going to go to the same middle school, too, because the normal progression was from their elementary school to that middle school, but one day, while they were making their oni masks again in preparation for Setsubun, Himiko quietly confided in Tenko that she and her mother were moving.

“Huh?” Tenko looked at her, frowning. She had been thinking only about how fun it was to charge into the first year classrooms and be hit by balled newspapers, not about anything else, so it took a moment for her to process what Himiko had said. “Moving? Why? Where?”

“South. Going to Kyoto.” It wouldn’t have been far, but Tenko hardly rode shinkansen, not without her mother, so she was looking at several hours of transit if she ever wanted to go and visit, and she knew Himiko’s mother was constantly working. “We move a lot, it’s not so uncommon,” said Himiko, but her expression wasn’t happy. She wasn’t all that vocal with her emotions at times, but Tenko could tell when she was sad. There was a crease in between her eyebrows. She was holding her marker unnecessarily tight. “I thought we were staying here forever, but I guess Mommy can’t keep the apartment.”

It gave Tenko pause. She didn’t have a cell phone, and neither did Himiko, so keeping in touch was going to be hard. “Do you know your new address?”

“No.” Himiko shook her head. “I know yours, though, so I can probably send you a letter from it when I get there.” From the way she lowered her marker to the table and clenched her hands together, it was clear that she didn’t really think they’d be able to keep in touch. Tenko felt something like an earthquake evening out in her gut. She couldn’t panic about this, or else that sadness in Himiko’s eyes would increase drastically. “I’m not leaving until next month when middle school starts.”

“Okay.” Tenko hesitated. “We can just hang out a lot until then. And then if you move again, make sure to come back here.” Himiko looked at her for a long moment, and then finally smiled, as though she had been worried that Tenko would freak out, or be angry at her. Tenko supposed it was a reasonable fear. She wasn’t exactly renowned for her ability to keep her temper. But she had never been able to be all that angry, as far as Himiko was concerned.

That, Tenko reasoned, was one of the biggest reasons why the prospect of Himiko leaving opened a pit of anxiety in her stomach which she had never felt before. Before Himiko came to her school, she didn’t have any friends. Really, Himiko was still her only friend, but she had that. And Kaito was nice to her sometimes, in a weird distant way, so that was okay. He stopped saying those stupid things about boys and girls sometime through fifth year, which made him a decently tolerable person. She wasn’t necessarily worried about not having friends, because she didn’t mind solitude. She liked her own company well enough.

What she was worried about was that she’d go back to how she was before. Fighting all the time, and everybody. Not paying attention to people except to dislike them. Using her fists at the slightest infraction. It was all she had known how to do. The easiest option. Even still, at times, Tenko felt like it was much more appealing than being nice. But Himiko kept her from doing that. From fighting people, and from hurting them. From hyper focusing in on altercations. If Himiko left… would all that go away? Because Himiko was pretty much the only person who made her see a point in refraining. Once she left, would she see no reason anymore?

Tenko desperately hoped not. But she didn’t know. She didn’t say anything about it to Himiko, because she didn’t want Himiko to worry, but then all of a sudden it was first year of middle school, and Himiko was gone, and Tenko was standing in a classroom full of unfamiliar people (except for Kaito, who was still there) and she didn’t know what to think. It was overwhelming and loud, and Tenko had never been the type to be overstimulated, but she was sorely tempted. Everyone was talking so much. Usually her reaction to any strong emotion would be to lash out physically. Or confide in Himiko. But neither of those seemed an option.

Instead, she took breaths. Long ones. In and out and in and out, and on every one she tried to relax herself. Her shoulders. Her knees. Her hands. Her palms were sweaty and she felt like she could feel every individual spot where her fingernails dug into her palms. But the pounding in her chest was lessening. She was calming down. Her head was swimming less and things were starting to feel more okay.

When lunch came, someone slid into the desk in front of her and turned the chair around. Kaito. And then next to him was a girl with blonde hair, a very pretty girl, with thin graceful fingers and pretty plum eyes. She smiled when Tenko looked at her, placing her lunch box on the desk.

“You don’t mind if Momota-kun and I eat with you, do you, Chabashira-san?” She asked. Her voice was pretty, melodic, like a violin was speaking through a person. When Tenko straightened up, she smelled melons. “I’m Kaede Akamatsu, it’s nice to meet you.”   
  


“You can sit here, Akamatsu-san, Tenko doesn’t mind,” Tenko said, swallowing hard. She pulled out her own lunch, a bit mechanically, and placed her bento on the table. For a moment she was worried, scared even, that she would be made fun of, because Kaede had sandwiches in her lunch, and a juice box. Was bento too immature for middle school? Her father had made her a panda out of rice, and it looked very nice, but if it wasn’t cool…   
  


“Hey, Tenko-chan,” Kaito grinned at her. “I like your bento. Gramma packed me one too, but she’s not that good at it.” He took out his own bento box, and Tenko felt herself relaxing, watching Kaito remove the lid and show it to her. Hers was definitely better, but Kaito’s grandmother had made a bunch of cute little monkeys with rice and sesame. It looked nice. “I’m getting good at making bento, so I think I’ll be packing my own soon.”

“You’re calling Chabashira-san  _ Tenko-chan?”  _ Kaede asked, widening her eyes. “Chabashira-san, is that okay? Did you give him permission to do that?”

“No,” said Tenko cooly. When Kaito pouted at her, she couldn’t help smiling, just a bit. “Tenko has known Kaito-kun since first year of elementary school, it’s probably what he’s used to.” She shrugged. “It’s… fine, Akamatsu-san.”

“Well then!” Kaede beamed. “I’m gonna call you Chabashira-chan then! You can stay Momota-kun for now,” she gave Kaito a playful look, and after trying to remain indignant, Kaito began to laugh. “You should call me Akamatsu-chan. We’ll be friends, right?”   
  
Tenko genuinely didn’t think she was capable of saying no to someone as pretty as Kaede was. “Okay.” She agreed. “We’ll be friends, Akamatsu-chan.” And she didn’t say it to Kaito, but she supposed they were friends too. Because he was there, and because he complimented her bento and called her Tenko-chan, and maybe because he was nice to her too, even though she had vivid memories of punching him hard in the stomach over words that he was repeating from his grandparents.

Himiko’s letter arrived a week later, asking about her new school, had she made any friends. Tenko read it over three times, beaming, for the full of it, and wrote back before even doing her homework, talking about Kaede and Kaito and how cleaning duty was so much easier at a school with so many more people. (Tenko didn’t mind doing cleaning duty, but it was better with more people. More fun. And Kaede pretty much made everything fun, comparing different levels of cleanliness to classical piano music and making Tenko’s sides hurt with laughter.)

And so middle school was okay. They didn’t celebrate Setsubun in middle school anymore, not the same way they did in elementary, but on Valentine’s Day in their second year, Tenko bought Kaede a box of chocolates and put it in her foot locker, and after insisting that they go to a festival together for Hinamatsuri and eating so much daifuku their stomachs began to hurt, Kaede got her one too, for White Day on the fourteenth, and on Kaede’s birthday twelve days later, they went to a movie together.

Kaede kissed her on the cheek when the night was over, and Tenko wrote about it to Himiko, feeling like she was glowing. Himiko responded by teasing her, saying,  _ Unfortunately, you’re not actually allowed to get a girlfriend before I do?  _ but ultimately expressed that she was happy for what happened, and sent a pair of fancy red chopsticks as a congratulatory gift, as well as a pretty hair clip as a birthday present for Kaede. (Kaede was very flattered and also surprised to be receiving a birthday gift from someone she didn’t even know.)

Their third year of middle school went by quickly. Tenko and Kaede broke up-- perhaps because middle school dating was awkward and confusing and their feelings were, really, very platonic, putting aside the thrilling endorphins they both got from holding hands and walking down the streets together-- part of the way through, but Tenko still got Kaede chocolates on Valentine’s Day. She bought some for Kaito too, which marked it as a more friendly gesture, and when they went to a movie on Kaede’s birthday, it was as a trio, not as a pair, and that was just fine.

Being angry enough to hit a person wasn’t exactly a dream of the past, of course. Kaito remarked once that men were supposed to strong by virtue of the fact that they were men, and women weren’t, and Tenko snapped momentarily and cuffed him across the jaw, but when her anger fizzed out, she realised that Kaede was laughing, and Kaito was holding his face, looking abashed but grinning.

“You have a good left hook, Chabashira-chan!” Giggled Kaede, shaking her head. “You totally deserved that, though, Momota-kun.”

“Did I really?” Kaito pouted, but it was a non-question and only made Kaede laugh harder. Tenko felt herself smiling, despite a bloom of guilt in her chest. “Damn, I forgot how good you are with the hitting and stuff, Tenko-chan. You don’t really slack off.”

“Tenko is sorry, though.” Tenko said quietly. “I’ve been trying to avoid that.”

“What? Hitting me when I say stupid shit?” Kaito waved her off. “Nah, Akamatsu-san was right, I deserved it.”

Tenko didn’t think that was really what it boiled down to, but she decided to treat Kaito’s dismissal as forgiveness, and resolved not to let it happen again. On the walk home from school, which she took alone that day because Kaede was staying after school to work on some piano thing and Kaito lived far in the other direction from her, she looked down at her hands and watched them shake for a moment. She did a lot of exercise. Gym was her best subject, and she liked playing volleyball too. It was fun. There was something cathartic about hitting a ball, of course, but there was more to it than that. Strategy. Angles. She had to think quickly and hit the ball a certain way. It made sense to her in ways other things didn’t.

But as a result, how much damage could her hands do? How strong was she really? Tenko didn’t think she was much to look at, but she knew that her core was firm with muscle. She couldn’t stay still for too long. Always had a bit of excess energy. She took it out by exercising. She had always distrusted her hands. Thought they had a mind of their own. But perhaps the thing she should have been looking at was her heart. The heart that Himiko was able to talk down, that Kaede was able to slide her way into, that Kaito ended up buried deep within after years of attempting. Her heart controlled her hands, after all. Her heart perhaps was to blame for the violence.

So then it would be her heart, she decided, that would stop it. She wasn’t better but she wasn’t good enough. She needed an outlet, one that wasn’t Kaito, or the next person who made her angry.

High school wasn’t all that different from middle, except that the work was harder and the stakes were higher. Tenko had no problem doing her work well. She was no brainiac like Kaito, who went through worksheets in five minutes and had to be given extra material to keep busy, but she wasn’t Kaede either, who spaced off in the first thirty seconds of class thinking about some new piano song she had learned. Tenko watched Kaede’s hands a lot, because her fingers were perhaps the most lovely thing about her, and noticed that they tended to tap on the desk, short fingernails making dull clicking noises. She was playing a piano that wasn’t there in the silences.

What was different between the two of them, high school and middle school, though, was that aside from doing volleyball, Tenko joined a martial arts club. One of its members, a second year named Sakura, had been handing out flyers in the lunchroom one day, and they caught her eye, for some reason. Really Sakura, with her large, imposing stature and pale, sky-over-a-mountain blue eyes caught Tenko’s eye. Her smile was intimidating but lovely, and she was poised, calm, composed. Tenko found herself breaking from Kaede and Kaito’s side to take one of the flyers, looking down at them.

Sakura observed her for a moment. “Chabashira, isn’t it?” Her voice was deep but soothing.

“U-Uh, yes,” Tenko stuttered out, a bit intimidated by the prospect of being addressed by someone like Sakura. “That’s Tenko-- you’re, uhm, Ogami-senpai, right?”

“You needn’t address me as your senpai,” Sakura smiled, looking pleased nonetheless, and Tenko thought she might do so anyway. “But yes, that is correct. You have a good build, Chabashira. You would make a good member.” She appraised her for another, longer moment, her gaze heavy but thoughtful, and then added, “Perhaps Aikido would suit you best.”

“Th-Thanks,” Tenko stammered, feeling her face flush, and looked down at the compliment. “T-Tenko will be there on Thursday after school, then.” It didn’t clash with volleyball, so she was free to do so. Sakura gave her a smile, and taking that as her cue to leave, Tenko turned around and nearly scurried back to Kaito and Kaede, her face still burning.

Laughing, Kaede managed to say, “Chabashira-chan, you are a raging lesbian,” and Kaito nudged her, but couldn’t keep the grin from her face.

“Shut up!” Tenko groaned, raking the hand that wasn’t holding the flyer down her face. “Her eyes are so pretty and strong women make Tenko weak in the knees. You wouldn’t last a second under her gaze, Akamatsu-chan.”

“You’re probably right.” Kaede gave a final giggle, shaking her head. “Ogami-senpai is really sexy!”

“Akamatsu-san,” Kaito raised his eyebrows at her. “You’ve been saying that about people every since we read that article in health class last year, you really shouldn’t…”

“What? What’s wrong with stating facts?” Kaede pouted. Tenko wondered if it would be appropriate to give Kaede a lecture on the implications of calling every girl she found attractive sexy, but decided it wasn’t worth the energy. Kaede was perhaps denser than a block of concrete. There’d be no getting through to her. Laughing and shaking her head, Tenko started towards one of the tables and pulled out her bento, and Kaito and Kaede joined her, chatting about something unrelated.

Aikido, as it turned out, was a very good thing to spend time learning. It provided Tenko with a place to put her excess time and energy. Something to devote her attention to. It was about technique. Martial arts, Sakura explained, were about finding inner balance, and meant to be used in defense, not intentionally against other people, or as a form of aggravation. Tenko found these words to be enlightening. In movies she saw heroes using karate or kung fu as a means of kicking the ass of their enemies. But the way Sakura described it, Aikido was more of a lifestyle than a weapon.

It was so indescribably nice to be putting her strength into something that wasn’t a weapon. Tenko could lose herself in the movements. It was more of an art than anything, an art that she could use to defend herself. Sparring with other people was more of a community thing. It was a way to communicate in a friendly way. Work together and better each other.

Tenko befriended all the members of the martial arts club; a couple other first years named Maki and Gonta, a second year named Aoi (Sakura’s girlfriend, Tenko later realised, after accidentally seeing the two of them kiss in the hallway) and another second year named Mukuro, and finally a few third years, Peko and Nekomaru and Akane. They were friendly people, even though Maki and Mukuro and Peko were more reserved than the rest, and fun to talk to. She had Kaede and Kaito join the rest of the club at lunch time, and thus her group of three close friends became a group of eleven, and really, Tenko had never felt happier.

She and Himiko were texting by then, because they had both gotten cell phones, but recently, Himiko’s text messages had been coming in slowly. When the end of first year came, spring alongside it, Himiko was barely answering anything at all. It made Tenko upset for reasons she couldn’t quite articulate. Sure, she was very, very happy, surrounded by people she liked and who liked her, but the thought of losing contact with Himiko, or Himiko not wanting to talk to her anymore made her feel… a deep kind of sadness. She wasn’t sure where it was rooted from, but she knew it affected her heart and her heart only. And it was the kind of heartache that she couldn’t vent by sparring, though she tried her very best.

Spring break wasn’t all that long, and when second year started up, Tenko and Kaede got to school half an hour early, because they’d stayed the night at Kaede’s the day before to walk together, and they both left a lot earlier than they needed to. As they were putting down their things in their old homeroom, their teacher approached them, smiling, but looking, Tenko thought, a bit nervous.

“Chabashira-san, Akamatsu-san, welcome back,” he greeted warmly, and the two of them echoed the sentiment, but Tenko could tell he was distracted, and perhaps Kaede thought the same, because neither of them said anything else after that. He cleared his throat. “So, we have a student transferring into your class this year. According to her mother, she’s a bit of a loner, and you two have always been such examples with inclusion…” really? Tenko hadn’t thought much about it. She knew it felt bad to be treated poorly, of course, but any inclusion that she perpetuated came more from a genuine like for positive interaction than much else. Perhaps she just followed Kaede’s lead in that area. “If you two wouldn’t mind spending some time with her-- at least until she gets more comfortable here--”

“No problem, Sensei!” Kaede beamed. “That doesn’t sound like a problem at all. Tenko-chan?” She asked, (for she had started calling Tenko  _ Tenko-chan  _ over the break), looking over at Tenko.

“Yeah, Tenko doesn’t mind.” Tenko agreed without thinking much about it. She admittedly wasn’t thinking much about the new kid. She was sure she’d be good friends with them, and not only because the teacher asked, but she was more thinking about Himiko. Why she hadn’t answered any messages for the past two weeks. Friendships ended all the time, Tenko supposed. She wasn’t going to be friends with Himiko  _ forever.  _ But she was nine when they met, and she was turning seventeen this next year, and she thought that-- well, she thought perhaps they’d keep the friendship for longer. It had been so long since she had seen Himiko, perhaps Himiko didn’t see much of a point in trying to maintain it anymore.

Still, it felt  _ bad.  _ And no matter how Kaito and Kaede had tried to comfort her, she hadn’t been able to stop ruminating in it. It just really wasn’t the best, that was all. Tenko supposed that she would get over it in time. But part of her didn’t want to.

The class flooded in slowly after that. Maki and Kaito, who had apparently started going out over the break, came in together, and sat near Kaede and Tenko, who filled them in about the new kid. Really, it was Kaede filling them in. Tenko was more just thinking about it. But they seemed to understand, and before Tenko turned back around, Maki shot her a rare smile, and so she was feeling a bit better about facing the day as the door opened and the teacher entered, followed by someone with playing-card red hair.

Tenko’s heartbeat came to a crashing halt. She had to blink several times before she fully accepted who it was that was standing at the door. But it was definitely her.

In many ways, Himiko looked different. She was taller, though not much (she was still rather short) and her hair was shorter too, cut in a neat bob that hung around her chin, and her expression was somehow even lazier than it had been in elementary school, but it was unquestionably the same person. Tenko recognised everything about her; the way she shifted from one foot to the other, gazing up at the teacher with her brows knit together, and how she held her backpack with her left hand, because she didn’t want to tire out her right, and her indoor shoes were too big on her feet, so she wore really thick socks to try to compensate. Tenko wondered if later, Himiko would complain about the socks being too hot, like she used to in elementary school.

Himiko was holding something in her right hand. Tenko thought it might have been a playing card.

“Class, this is Himiko Yumeno,” said their teacher, and the chatter in the room fell quiet. Next to her, Kaede jolted, clearly recognising the name of the girl who mailed her birthday presents every year and had them delivered through Tenko. “She’s just transferred here from Kyoto. I know you all know each other already from last year, but let’s make an effort to let Yumeno-san feel included in the class.” More quietly, he said, “You can go ahead and find a seat, Yumeno-san.”

Before Himiko even moved, Tenko blurted, “You can sit next to Tenko, Himiko-chan,” and in the front of the room, Himiko jumped, her ever-familiar red-brown eyes widening, and when they landed on Tenko, a smile burst over her expression, and Tenko couldn’t help returning the look.

“Hey!” Kaito’s voice was smiling too behind Tenko. “I remember Himiko-chan.” He sounded very happy, but Tenko didn’t hear him, and Himiko didn’t seem to. She shuffled across the floor, not quite lifting her feet from the tile so as not to let her indoor shoes slip off, and then stopped in front of Tenko’s desk. There was something about her gaze that was almost electric.

After a long moment of silence, Himiko said quietly, “I was hoping I’d be at the same school as you, but I didn’t wanna tell you that I was until I knew for sure. Sorry for ghosting you recently.” Her voice was lower than it used to be, but she spoke exactly the same way. Tenko felt her heart begin to palpitate, which was an entirely unfamiliar sensation, but she couldn’t stop smiling.

“It’s okay, Himiko-chan, Tenko wasn’t worried.” Next to her, Kaede snorted, and Tenko would’ve glared at her had she not been determined to keep her eyes glued to Himiko. Himiko dropped her backpack at the desk next to Tenko and slowly made her way over to it, but before she sat down, she whispered something.

“What’s that in your pocket?”

Tenko frowned, sliding her hand into her pocket, and curled her fingers around something flat and smooth. Stiff, like cardstock. Her hand shook as she pulled it out.

Ace of diamonds.

“Tenko’s favourite card,” Tenko said, her throat awfully dry. When she met Himiko’s eyes, the other girl was beaming.

“Y’know, it’s mine too,” Himiko replied softly, and smiled that familiar half-smirk that she used to, and Tenko felt her face begin to warm seeing it. Some of the feelings that she was being flooded with were totally unfamiliar. Ones that hadn’t been there before. And she was noticing things too, small things, like the dot of freckles across the bridge of Himiko’s nose, and the tiny golden hoops in her ears, and the dove charms on the bracelet on her right wrist. The way that the light reflected in her red-brown eyes.

Her hair was Tenko’s favourite colour of red, and she wasn’t entirely sure that her cheeks weren’t turning that colour with how quickly her heart rate was spiking. She found, though, that she didn’t care at all. And her hands, on the desk, laid entirely still and calm.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm really proud of this one :^) damb i'm out here with all the past tense fics huh fajhsdf
> 
> anyway uhh
> 
> y'know. tenmiko. i got the idea for this yesterday while driving to the capitol. i thought it'd be a fitting piece for my one hundredth fic
> 
> SPEAKING OF WHICH!!! KJFDHSJFKHDSJFHDSKFHEKJEHF BRO WHAT THE FUCK???
> 
> i can't believe,,, i can't believe i've written one hundred fics on ao3. holy shit. mindblowing. the support i've received from y'all has been mindblowing, u are all so very sweet. love u guys. here's to another one hundred fics in this next year lololololol
> 
> enjoy the lesbians <:3


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